


Gravitas

by lalaiths



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 14:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13460103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaiths/pseuds/lalaiths
Summary: Poe's got the weight of the dead dragging him down.





	Gravitas

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the last jedi! A character study more than anything.

  
When he was seven years old Poe rode in the Falcon for the first time. Nestled in his mother’s lap, he sat in the co-pilot seat and peered out at the stars. Han in the pilot seat and Chewie hanging on the back of their chair as Shara let Poe fly them in circles in the Yavin IV atmosphere. 

He’s thirty-two now, walking through the Falcon like a dream. The sharp, warm spicy scent of Shara Bey is only the faintest memory, and he doesn’t have a lap to sit in now. He played chess with Chewie here, he fell asleep on the bunk Rose occupies now, tucked in by the emergency blanket Finn found. He could almost remember Shara’s warm arms, laughing as she picked him up and carried him to the crew quarters. 

Millennium Falcon always felt a little bit like a piece of home. Not just because of the fame, not just because of the age, because of his fond memories of Shara Bey, laughing into his hair. Of Han, cursing up a storm as Poe pulled them into a feint and back again just to see the stars fly by. Just for his mom to hug him a little closer (just to see Han go flying against the wall, to make Chewie laugh). 

\--

Poe wakes under a table in the main room of the Falcon with the taste of blood in his mouth and a headache that makes every loop and sweep of the ship feel like the floor getting pulled out from under his feet. There’s blood in his mouth as he remembers everyone he’s lost (everyone he’s cost them for his foolish, desperate decisions). He groans, throwing an arm over his eyes and rolling onto his side. He falls into a warm, solid surface, realizes it’s a body, and grasps blindly at them. 

“Nngh,” he groans when he opens his eyes. He’s sure they left the lowlights on in the main cabin, but even that dim light stings his eyes to tears. He feels the body next to him shift and starts at the warm hand. Skin more leathery (soft though, so soft), than a humans reveals them to be C’ai, and Poe practically curls against him in his haste to block out his senses. 

“What is it?” C’ai asks, fingers warm against his cheek. His breath warm as it washed over him, fluffing tendrils of his hair against his skin.

Poe can’t shake his head and has his mouth clamped shut tight against nausea, swallowing a wave that stings to taste like blood, so he just drops his head against the cold floor and tries in vain to keep pain at bay. It’s when the images start -- of a black mask peering at him from the gloom; pain, blood, madness scrubbing his brain clear, that he jerks back and the shakes begin.

“Poe!” He hears his name very distantly, and he grips C’ai’s jacket as hard as he can, as though it’ll keep him from slipping into oblivion. Darkness reaches out with long arms and grasps him around the neck. He’s thrown back into unconsciousness with the force of a lightspeed blast. All he sees when he closes his eyes is the void of space and a blinding light bursting into bloom like a supernova. 

 

\--

“What’s wrong with him?” 

Finn’s voice is the first thing he hears when he wakes. He’s got grit under his tongue, skin feeling like it got raked over hot coals. He’s hot, then cold, then his nerves light up with pain. There’s something in his brain. It’s Ben Solo throwing things around in his brain like a tantrum, throwing memories and thoughts around inside his mind, but it’s softer, lighter. It’s a fresh taste. Cucumbers from his dad’s garden. The weight of a kiss, the feeling of an orgasm after a long, terrible day. He flails out and something clamps down on his hand, holding it still against the slab he’s laying on. 

The answering voice is soft, words curling around vowels. There’s faces in his head: Paige closing her eyes as bombs fall down around her, of Tallie smirking as she wraps her father’s scarf around her neck ‘for luck’. Everyone he cost them, everyone they lost. Holdo staring into his eyes with a smile sharp as a knife as she says he’s dangerous. Holdo morphing into Ben Solo, fourteen years old, scowling up at him while he clamors onto the Falcon, saying ‘it’s dangerous, we’re not allowed!’ Ben Solo, thirty, punching him in the stomach so hard it cracks ribs, gripping his temple so hard he practically feels it crack his skull.

“His head feels like it got stuffed full of darkness.” There’s a ragged, wet sound he belatedly realizes is Rey’s voice. He feels sick, to know he’s the reason. “There’s so many faces.”

There’s a warm pressure against his forehead, smoothing his curls back away from his skin. A pressure at each temple -- for an instant, he’s strapped to a chair and held prone while a droid penetrates him at the temples hard enough to bleed -- then he’s filled with a warm light. It seeps through him, soothing aches and terrors. He smells an ocean, he feels rain, his chest rises and falls in time to the waves crashing.

When he wakes, he’s alone in a bunk in the crew quarters. Two empty bunks and a perfectly good floor, and he’s alone. It’s quiet and still, and those are all things he’s sure shouldn’t be. There shouldn’t be so few of them that there’d be room for him to be left in peace. So used to the adrenaline, so used to constant rush. He still tastes salt on his lips, still feels that soft, commanding force pressing him to calm. The soft pull of his pain being ripped from himself and released outward. He takes a deep breath, puts a hand on his chest, and rolls to his feet. 

He walks through the Falcon like a sleepwalker, stepping softly around sleeping bodies. Chewie looks up from where he’s nestled in the couch with a pile of porgs, and calls out quietly. 

“I’m alright,” he says, and steps around C’ai’s legs (still under the table), past Rose, still asleep where Finn had laid her down with his jacket, and into the cockpit. 

Finn and Rey are in the pilot’s chairs, Finn has his legs stretched out under the dash and Rey’s got one of hers up to her chest. They’re talking softly, and for a moment Poe wants to just watch them, see the way Finn smiles so gently at her it makes his own heart hurt. It’s easy casual, the kind Finn’s never had. But Rey catches him too quick.

“Poe!” Finn cries, and trips over himself to get up and give him a hug. “Are you alright?” He asks, looking him straight in the eye, and Poe can’t look away because he’s a weakling. 

“I’m fine, buddy.” He can’t pull away from Finn’s hands on his shoulders, but he can place one hand on Rey’s chair and break Finn’s gaze to look down at her. To see her, to see the exhaustion under her eyes, the gloom and sorrow. “Whatever you did really helped.” 

“Oh!” Her brown eyes go wide, her smile is soft as the dawn, chasing shadow away. “That’s good, I’ve never tried to heal anybody with the force before.” 

It startles a laugh out of him. “Happy to be of service then,” he bites his lip and glances at the controls, so aware of how small the cockpit is. “Speaking of, I think it’s time you got some rest, yeah?” 

“No! I’m fine,” she jut her chin out. “I’ve gotten loads more sleep than anyone here!” 

“Oh yeah?” Finn quirks an eyebrow. “When? Before or after you fought Snoke _and_ Kylo Ren, the guards, saved us all, healed Poe, and sent us flying away?” 

Rey opens her mouth, then closes it again. She starts to look sheepish. “Um. I guess it was a while.” She gets up, but pins both of them with a glare. “I can’t believe you’d gang up on me like this.” 

Poe grins at her, showing his teeth, and claps her gently on the back. “Don’t worry, I’ve flown this rig before.” 

“Seven is not the appropriate learning age!” She scowls as she leaves, closing the cockpit door behind them.

Poe settles into the seat, slipping the headset on and runs through his routine checks. The nav says they’re en-route to, what, Dantooine? And he knows they need to refuel, need to somehow get new ships, new ways to fight. But Dantooine’s base had been stripped way back in the days of the empire. It takes him a moment to realize that Finn hasn’t stopped looking at him, and when he does he freezes in place.

“What is it?” 

Finn’s got bags under his eyes and he’s leaning forward with his arms holding him up. His back has got to be killing him, and he hasn’t said a kriffing thing about it. He’s got a thousand worries on his shoulders, but there’s a fire there that Poe hadn’t noticed before. 

“I tried to run.” 

“What?” Poe blinks, brow furrowing. “When?”

“Before, when I first woke up, I tried to run. Rose stopped me. Stunned me. That’s how we met, it wasn’t luck.” Finn’s edged closer, so close their knees touch.

Poe can’t move, can’t stop his heart from racing. A thousand disjointed thoughts run through his head and all he can think of is their first meeting, when Finn had pulled him into that little alcove and removed his helmet and gave him a spark of hope he never thought he’d have again. 

“I tried to run to save Rey, and it’s not an excuse.” Finn’s brow is furrowed and he’s loomed even closer. 

“Buddy,” Poe grasps his arm because he can’t help himself. It feels like a long distant memory when they met but it hasn’t even been a month. Finn hasn’t even had time to figure out who he is, let alone if he wants to fight for a cause so much bigger than all of them. “You never signed up for this.” 

“I did! I did when I saved you. I did when I told Rey. I did when I came back.” Finn’s grasping Poe’s hand in a grip that crushes. It aches where he’d been stabbed once, right in the palm. 

“Finn you haven’t even had a chance to figure out what you want to do,” Poe says, biting his lip hard. He thinks of Kes, how he always devoted himself so wholeheartedly once he’d decided. But those decisions had never been made lightly, and his papa had given him that same streak, that determination. Honing that and thinking things through, those had come with hard fought battles. It’s different, here. Poe had a life of being an adventurer, of diving in head first and the thrill of living in it. No need for consequences when you could die tomorrow. Finn hasn’t been able to live until now, and Poe almost cost him that chance.

“Look, Finn.” He squeezes his hand. All the people who died for them and this is what he can’t deal with. “I’m glad you’re here. But you don’t have to be, you know?” 

“I do,” Finn’s cradling his hand. “I know that now. I can’t just sit by when this war is for all of us. I won’t let anyone get hurt again.” He brushes Poe’s cheek with his thumb, right over the scar. “No more slaves, no more torture. We gotta’ win this war, Poe.” 

And Poe: all he can think of is Finn hurtling alone towards the canon set to take down the big ass door keeping the First Order from the last of the Resistance. All he can think of is how hard they all tried in vain to seek help when no one answered. All he can think of is how he would have lost Finn in a burning, fiery inferno, to what? 

Poe grew up with heroes, grew up on their stories. He grew up knowing that even if he were the last one, he’d fight. Poe can fly anything and there’s all types of flight. From ships to people to war -- he can do it. Survival though? Without Finn? 

You can’t fly without wings. 

He’s crashing into Finn’s orbit before he knows what hit him, spiraling down. He cups his neck with his hand and leans in, in, in until their lips crash together. Finn’s mouth is soft, warm, and they part without resistance. It takes a moment of Finn kissing back before Poe realizes what he’s done and jerks his head back. He didn’t realized he closed his eyes until he’s opening them again. He looks at Finn who looks back at him with those eyes so wide, like he didn’t know what hit him. 

“That means love, doesn’t it?” Finn asks, his voice so sincere it breaks his heart.

“It means a lot of things,” Poe says, looking at him through his eyelashes. “But yeah, buddy.” He grasps his shirt, drops his head to rest on Finn’s shoulder, and then pulls away. Because how could he be such a fool? To love, when he could lose everyone. He’s lost his parents, he’s lost L’ulo, he’s lost his squad. He’s lost so many and there are so few left. To give his heart away again, so quickly? 

“Poe.” 

Snap always used to tease him about being space crazy, and he’s always laughed it off. Because yeah, he may be a little bit. May have been born to it, even. His heart’s in orbit and all he wants to do is lose himself in Finn’s gaze, to fit right into his side where he feels solid against all he’s lost. Poe Dameron lost himself once, and Finn pulled him back. That’s all there is to it. Finn saved his life and pulled him back and how could he not fall in love? Reason’s never been his strong suit. 

“Poe. Look at me.” 

And he does, force help him. He looks at Finn. All he can do is meet his eyes because Finn’s crashing right into him, smacks him in the nose with too much force, bruises their mouths and thwacks teeth. Poe laughs, framing Finn’s face with his hands. He pulls him back. 

“Too much gravity, buddy,” he presses their foreheads together and wipes his nose. Finn looks so puzzled, so hurt. It’s delightful. “Gentle.” He touches his chin, and guides him in, catching their lips together with the softest touch. He breaks it quickly, brushing his thumb against his cheek. “Like that.” 

Finn’s fingers find Poe’s shirt collar, and he leans his foreheads together until they touch. He breathes deeply, through his nose. Poe faintly wonders if he smells as awful as he feels, all space grit and sweat and fear. But when Finn opens his eyes the stars reflect back at him from the vastness outside, and he his breath catches a little in his chest. 

“Like this?” He whispers, and his forehead is cool and smooth against Poe’s. His skin by comparison still feels ragged, like jagged peaks or like the crusty battlefield of Crait’s salt-fields. 

“Yeah, buddy.” Poe pulls back, fingers trailing along Finn’s jawline before he pulls back to the controls. 

\--

When Poe is thirty-two, he pilots the Millennium Falcon again. He’s not strong with the force, not even force sensitive, but when he closes his eyes he can practically feel the ghosts of all the people behind him, the weight on his chest, on his back, on his shoulders. 

The Falcon bursts into orbit in Dantooine and he sees the place his mother and father spoke of for the very first time. The old, hollowed out remains. Leia is at his side in the copilot chair, and she directs him firmly over it, past it, through a waterfall across a continent. She has one hand on the small of his back and one propping herself against the dashboard, and she’s strong and fierce and golden.

“Breathe, Poe.” She says with a wink, as he guides the legendary ship down to the ground in front of three familiar figures dressed in orange and brown. Jessika Pava punches air in front of their nose as Kare and Snap hug. Poe’s heart leaps to his throat. All he can think is _thank the Force, I didn’t kill you too._ “You’ll feel better.” 


End file.
